Dimensions
137 x 210 x 18mm
Janice was a teenage runaway who survived underage sex, drugs and homelessness on the mean streets of New York to get sober, go to college and turn her life around. Janice Erlbaum was just 15 when she gave her mother an ultimatum: 'If you let Dave come back again, I'm leaving'. And then her mother did it anyway - she let her violent third husband come back, despite a protection order, a kidnap attempt, divorce proceedings and her daughter's terrified pleas. The same night, Janice found her way through the dangerous New York streets to an almost scarier shelter where she was threatened with a knife in the face by a psycho pregnant teen, jumped by a room-mate - and made friends with a 12-year-old hooker.
For the next three years she moved from shelter to shelter, having sex with hoods in squats and stairwells, doing acid, forming friendships, going to clubs and stealing. She ended up with 'The man of my dreams, a dazzling criminal club kid named Sebastian'. Within six months they were living together and struggling with a whopping cocaine addiction. One night Sebastian saved her life after an overdose and they quit cold turkey. But their problems didn't end there. Just as they were getting their lives together, and Janice was about to graduate from high school and start college, she had an affair, betraying the first man who'd truly loved her. This is an unflinching look at street life, survival sex, female friendships and first love.
A fresh take on teenage homelessness and its aftermath told with humour and without self-pity by a terrific young writer.
